Abstract

Heterotrophic microorganisms, especially bacteria, play an
important part in decomposition processes, nutrient cycling and
food chains in aquatic systems. A number of different methods
have been proposed for measuring microbial growth rates, but many
are not specific for bacteria or do not include the whole population.
It is evident that the ideal method should involve minimal handling
of the bacterial population and be applied quickly so as not to alter
natural or in situ growth rates or to be influenced by bacterial grazers.
The use of radioactive nucleicacid precursors especially thymidine,
to measure the rate of DNA synthesis has many of the prerequisites
of the ideal method. As with all other techniques, there are disadvantages
as well as advantages in using measurements of nucleicacid
synthesis